Following on from yesterday’s post – and on a lighter and much less important note – I decided to google the origins of the highly popular, and internationally-approved monthly regime of torture a.k.a waxing.
Why this need to research something so trivial? Well, I went for my wax yesterday afternoon as I am being forced to don a bikini later today and the experience reaffirmed that it is the only thing about summer that I do not like. Braais, flip-flops, maxi dresses, chilled sangria, freezocino’s, poolside chats, fake tan hits and misses, and longer days are all things that I like. no luuuurve, about summer. Waxing? Not so much.
I imagine it’s like the smaller, quieter sister of childbirth – unavoidable, very painful at the time and then ‘wooooosh’ as soon as it’s over you forget the trauma and book your next appointment in four weeks time with a smile on your face. I didn’t say it actually made sense...
Anyway, the lovely people at Get Waxing had this to say about it:
“Removing hair from the body is certainly not new. The ancient Egyptians did this long before suburban house wives discovered the bikini wax. A smooth and hairless body was the standard of beauty, youth and innocence for a woman in Egypt. The wife of the divine Pharoah set the example and every Egyptian woman took care that there was not a single hair on her body. They used depilatory creams and waxed with a sticky emulsion made of oil and honey, similar to what we now call "sugaring".
Later, the Greeks adopted this ideal of smoothness. The old Greek sculptures show us that. The sculptures of women are polished, shiny and all, and there is no pubic hair at all, whereas the sculptures of men do show pubic hair! The Greeks thought pubic hair on women was ugly and upper class ladies removed it. The Romans did not like pubic hair either and young girls began removing it as soon as it first appeared. They used tweezers, which they called the "volsella" and had a kind of depilatory cream, the "philotrum" or "dropax", the forerunner of the current depilatory creams! Waxing was also a way of depilating and this was done with resin or pitch.
Later, the Greeks adopted this ideal of smoothness. The old Greek sculptures show us that. The sculptures of women are polished, shiny and all, and there is no pubic hair at all, whereas the sculptures of men do show pubic hair! The Greeks thought pubic hair on women was ugly and upper class ladies removed it. The Romans did not like pubic hair either and young girls began removing it as soon as it first appeared. They used tweezers, which they called the "volsella" and had a kind of depilatory cream, the "philotrum" or "dropax", the forerunner of the current depilatory creams! Waxing was also a way of depilating and this was done with resin or pitch.
In 1520, Bassano de Zra wrote: "The Turks consider it sinful when a woman lets the hair on her private parts grow. As soon as a woman feels the hair is growing, she hurries to the public bath to have it removed or remove it herself." The public baths all had special rooms where the ladies could get rid of their hair. Nowadays the hamams, or public baths, have special rooms for the ladies to depilate.
The habit of depilating fell out of fashion after Catherine de Medici, then queen of France, forbade her ladies in waiting to remove their pubic hair any longer.
In the sixties, smoothness was rediscovered with the invention of the bikini, and today many woman remove hair somewhere on their bodies. It is the fashion to have smooth armpits, legs, bikini lines. Today, even men are getting smooth. The greater "exposure" of athletes, models and even porn stars continue to lend to the trend.”
The habit of depilating fell out of fashion after Catherine de Medici, then queen of France, forbade her ladies in waiting to remove their pubic hair any longer.
In the sixties, smoothness was rediscovered with the invention of the bikini, and today many woman remove hair somewhere on their bodies. It is the fashion to have smooth armpits, legs, bikini lines. Today, even men are getting smooth. The greater "exposure" of athletes, models and even porn stars continue to lend to the trend.”
Okay, so we have ancient Egypt, Greece, Turkey and France to blame for the hair removal obsession. Also, I am not very impressed to hear that the men even managed to avoid hair removal when being depicted in art... Typical!
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